Prideful Confession
by ZiYu
Summary: It just started out like all their past encounters, really. Hibari/Adult!Skull


**Disclaimer:** Once upon a time, ZiYu asked **Katekyo Hitman Reborn** if it could become hers. KHR clobbered her head, morphed into a cloud and silently drifted away, because it was never hers to have.

**Dedication:** For **Halloween's Phantom**. I did put one of your stories on alert after all.

**Warnings:** Involves two males lovin' each other. A light-hearted story that is suddenly smeared by a dab of angst. But worst of all, a frightening lack of smut. (What kind of audience am I writing this for? Yeesh.)

**Summary:** It just started out like all their past encounters, really. Hibari/Adult!Skull

* * *

><p><strong>Prideful Confession<strong>

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><p>He laughs and relishes this thrilling sensation as the wind lashes against his frame—his real, adult body, not the stubby arms and legs of a midget—and it feels amazing, surreal. It has been so long since he could stretch out his limbs and really feel in control, freed from the confines of his baby body.<p>

But best of all, he could ride again.

Yes, _ride_. To hear and feel the steady hum of his motorbike and to be swept away by that mind-numbing elation that comes with every acceleration, every spin, every leap across a chasm of air—

To speed over house roofs and dive down ramps and leap over steel hurdles and to laugh as he whizzes dangerously past angrily honking cars—

To be Daredevil Skull, and not Cloud Arcobaleno Skull, to be completely free and at ease as he abandons every dead weight behind—

"For damage of Namimori's public facilities and disruption of road traffic," a low voice announces ominously behind him, "I will bite you to death."

Skull gulps nervously behind his white and purple helmet. Perhaps not as free as he thought. He proceeds to drive faster as the wind whistles in his ear. And to his utter horror, he hears the footfalls of Hibari as the teenager relentlessly chases him down, hopping from building to building. Repeat: _The_ Hibari Kyoya, chasing down him and his motorbike, on foot! _On freakin' foot!_

He moans in despair as he recalls his mission that led to his current predicament: to train this obviously inhuman man. Why, again?

Because Reborn told him to. Right, always Reborn. It was always, _always_, Reborn's fault, the bully.

"I am the great Skull-sama," he shouts back over his shoulder. "The Cloud that is not tied down by anything! Your mission is to do the impossible and catch me!"

Well. That came out confident enough. But ye Gods, please please _please_ don't let Hibari catch up. Just don't. He still remembers tonfas and chains and propagating porcupines, and those were, to put gently, not nice at all. His poor, purple blimp!

Reborn is evil. Let his most recent memory prove that.

* * *

><p>"Skull."<p>

Skull doesn't hear him.

"Hey. Lackey."

Skull still doesn't hear him.

Reborn, adult Reborn, a very _scary_ and very _intimidating_ adult Reborn with one helluva dark aura, fires a bullet coated with sun flames towards his direction.

Skull hears him.

"W-w-wh-what was that for, Reborn-san?" Skull gives him a tortured look before patting down the singed strands of purple hair on his disheveled head.

"Your fault for not paying attention," Reborn smirks as Leon transforms back into a green chameleon and crawls onto his shoulder.

"I-I was listening!" Skull shouts indignantly. _Not really._ But hey, he just became an adult again, how was he expected to settle and listen to scientific psycho-babble? It all sounded like Greek to him anyways. Who'd blame him?

Reborn, apparently.

Reborn's polished black shoe greets his face as he tumbles to the ground from the kick. "Thank Vongola for researching a way to free us from our curse. You're training Hibari for a week."

He squawks. (Except it isn't really a squawk, not really, there's no way _Skull_ would make such an undignified noise—it must have simply been an indignant, _manly_ sound from his voice box. Yes, yes that's right.) "Train—!" His eyes drift to the figure leaning against the doorway.

"Hmph." An almost inaudible huff is heard.

Skull's eyes dart back. "NO WAY!"

Reborn sends a maniacal grin his way. "Yes way. Hibari, follow."

And Skull is booted out the door.

* * *

><p>"Furthermore—"<p>

Drats! Hibari is catching up! Skull swerves to the right.

"Untidy, dyed hair."

A few loose ceramic tiles wedge their way down and clatter to the ground below as he zooms from house to house.

"Purple eyeshadow."

Skull is not quaking with fear. He is most certainly _not_ trembling like a leaf. He _is_ speeding steadily ahead, making very, _very_ good distance.

"A teardrop tattoo on your left cheek."

He performs a stunt as his motorbike flips in mid-air, leaving the Vongola's Cloud Guardian stranded on the roof of the building far, far behind him. "Hah! Take that!"

"_Ear and mouth piercings._"

No. Hibari is not close enough to literally _breathe down his neck_ and _hiss into his ear_. Full throttle ahead!

"These are all violations of Namimori's dress code."

Because his motorbike is just that awesome, it brakes to an immediate stop in a fraction of a second. Wait, what? Why did he stop?

Oh no.

_No, no, no._

Hibari did _not_ just _catch up_ to him.

There's an ear-splitting crash, and Skull thinks for a second that that is Life screaming "Denial!" at him. He is tossed into a cement wall with a heavy thud and an "Oomph."

And before him, is Hibari Kyoya—tonfas drawn—who will be the very death of him.

Closer, now, closer. So near that Skull can count all the scratches on the surfaces of those tonfas. So near that he can see the thin rings of steel blue that are Hibari's irises. So near now that he can count the number of eyelashes framing those sharp eyes—

This is it. _RIP Skull_, he thinks as he shuts his eyes away from incoming metal—

And slightly chaffed lips come crashing down onto his.

Wait. _What?_

Skull lets out a small squeak as he feels teeth sink into his lower lip. "I will bite you to death," Hibari hisses again. He shivers as their lips meet again in one rough and very bruising kiss.

And Skull's mind is now reeling, his head is spinning and he is engulfed in a wave of heat and dizziness and he can't comprehend what is happening and he is being kissed and and and—

Woah, _tongue_.

...

Sometime, somehow, there's the sound of zippers being undone and clothes fluttering as they are cast aside.

...

And _oh_—

...

_Oh_, screw it. Just let him have it.

* * *

><p>He wakes up in a futon and freezes as pain shoots up his spine.<p>

Wow. Talk about _awkward_.

* * *

><p>They're back outdoors, coursing over rooftops and speeding too fast across the streets of Namimori. Hibari is hot on his heels again, and is that newfound intensity with which he stares at him just a figment of imagination?<p>

The wheels of Skull's motorbike screech and sparks fly as he makes a sharp turn into an alleyway. He pulls out all stops, using all his Daredevil techniques of weaving and twisting and flying on his bike to get away. Except that tingly feeling coursing like electric torrents down his spine, he doesn't know if it's out of fear or excitement or...anticipation?

The events of two days before flash across the surface of his memory, and he flushes a deep cherry red under his helmet.

Well, this wouldn't do. He is Daredevil Skull, meaning that he confronts everything head on in a bold, courageous manner. This too.

He swerves and drives in a large circle around his target. Hibari pauses in the center, lips twitching briefly into the faintest of smiles. "What?"

"I—" Skull takes in a deep breath and blurts, "BE HONORED! THE GREAT SKULL-SAMA IS IN LOVE WITH YOU!"

_Very good_, he thinks smugly to himself. He is darn proud of himself for getting it off his chest.

However...

It is not wise to think let alone speak such distracting thoughts, especially not when one is looping around on motorbike faster than a cheetah that ingested hot chilli peppers. He notices a car too late, swerves right past it, but loses control as he spins wildly and then crashes.

But under the now cracked and fallen shards of purple glass from the helmet, Hibari sees a soft smile grow on Skull's lips even as the fool slips into darkness.

...

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><p>Hibari waits, dutifully making his visits to the unconscious Arcobaleno every day before his early morning patrol rounds in Namimori. Because he knows that Skull is nervous yet confident, jittery yet prideful, and stubborn, unbelievably stubborn. So he waits, because one day, Skull will definitely wake up.<p>

And then he'll give Skull his answer.

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><p><strong>AN: **In my notes for writing this story, I wrote: "Hibari and Skull both represent the Cloud, but of very different sorts. Hibari has a mania of enforcing discipline, achieving his aloof status by containing everyone else, dominating them as head prefect. Skull, on the other hand, obtains his boundless status by speeding past in an agitated flight, metaphorically driving away in the chaos, the daredevil of the sky. If Hibari is the overcast cloud that blankets the entire sky, Skull is that lone puff of cloud drifting independently from all else."

As for how that culminates into a functional pairing, well...  
>Discuss.<p>

Meanwhile, I'll be running back to my Disgaea fic. Much love doods. Toodles!


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